Ok. Let’s see who can handle a post in english. Coz we’re not the only ones who have to make some efforts, you know.
All the indians have a very special accent. But don’t ask them, they’re thinking it’s their accent the good one, therefore english or american are those who have a bad accent. The thing is, even all the indians have a different accent, depend on the state they’re coming from. In the south, they’re making the sound “r” like spanish people. It’s quite funny to listen to indians from the south, and not that difficult to understand.
In class, it’s forbidden to speak in Hindi. Even, when India was under the control of the Great Britain, those who were caught speaking in Indi in the universities were charged a fine of 200 Roupees. Things have changed by now. When they are in class, they still have to speak in English. Sometimes, the teacher will use the unit “Lakh” which means 100 000, and for time to time just a word or two in Hindi.

Can anybody speak English ?
No, not at all ! Actually, people who can speak english are only the educated ones. 75% of indians knows reading, but less than that can speak english. When you walk in the street and you meet someone, you would be very lucky if he/she speaks english (except if he/she wears occidental clothes, shirt&tie, etc). I said the accent was different regarding the state. A good movie that you can watch to have an idea is Le Cactus. This movie is a big cliché of India, but you will find a lot of true things. In the train, a man speaks in english and the french actor doesn’t understand a word. If you watch this movie, just add some more indians everywhere, when there are 2 indian in the screen, think it’s more 20, and you’ll have a good idea about what is India !

So everyone uses Hindi to communicate ?
No, neither english nor hindi ! I spoke yesterday with Arhun, he come from the south of India (Madras, or Chennai, as you prefer). He learnt Hindi in High School, as the foreign language. He could have choose German, so the good choice was really obvious… He also could have take French, but it’s not usefull in India. It’s almost impossible to go in France, and there is not a lot of french companies in India.
So Hindi as a foreign laguage, it’s surprising. English is the first language for studying. Hindi is speaking more in the North, this time again it depends on the state.

So what is the common language ?
There is no common language. Hindi is usually undestood by everyone, but in my state, Maharstra, the common language is Maharati. In the south, there is one place where the common language is Sanskrit (the famous one). I didn’t know it was still spoke ! You can also have Tamul, Telugu, and so on. One of my favourite image is : India, the country of 1000 colours, 10 000 languages and 100 000 gods. But it seems to be not enough, it’s more 6 800 000 gods.
Nevertheless, when people from my batch are together, they commonly speak in Hindi. Sometimes, they even use Telugu, or Tamul, between friends. Some friends of mine know I don’t like when everybody is spealing in Hindi, so they try to use English as often as possible. But some people doesn’t take attention, and I just wait till the end of the discussion…
I learnt some words in Hindi, and indian find this really funny (they don’t have the same sense of humour, so it’s not that difficult to make them laught. Even the smallest joke is enough, so when you say something slang in Hindi, you become the king of your class) :

Bonjour, Hello, Namaste.
Ca va ? How are you ? Tum Kaise Ho.
Ca va. I’m fine. Acha Hun.
Tu es jolie. You’re beautiful. Tum Sundar Ho. Non, no, nahi !
I’m going to pee, Mutne Jana Hey.
Dickhead, Lavdu.

But every indians pronounces it in a different way, and they never write it as I’ve done. The purpose is only to be understood, not to be good in grammar or syntaxe !

So why did I use english instead of french ? Because we had a test in English. Those who didn’t get a good enough mark have a class in the evening. And i’m not in that case, i’m better in english than some indians of my batch ! And that rocks !!

We’re leaving on Saturday for the Diwali vacations, our first destination is Goa. Nice beachs, huge parties, lot of foreigners… A place to discover ! We’ll stay there 5 or 6 days, depends on the tickets we’ll have to reach Kerala by bus. It’s something like 36 hours, so we’ll make some breaks on the road. It’s all along the cost, i’ll come back with wonderful pictures ! In Kerala, Henri found us a very nice place where we can see tigers… In the Jungle, in one of the most beautiful place in India ! We will then take the plane from Cochin to Mumbai on November 5th, tickets are already booked.
We only have two weeks this time, and two weeks in April. We have some plans for the next holydays, we can go at Dehli, Jaipur, Raipur… Indian people are ready to welcome us, that’s good to see how good welcomers they are !